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There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

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181–190 of 409 posts

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#181

Value is already decoupled from money in the entire economy. When inflation is 3% YOY, but wages don't increase. If money was an indicator of value wages would track with inflation. There's no objective measure of value anymore and most jobs are more or less bullshit jobs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

Median household income is up to $69k now. In 1980, it was $17k. Wages are up 3.7x since 1980. REAL median household income is up 32% [1]. And this is with labor force participation absolutely plummeting [2].

Less people are working, and yet households are bringing in 32% more.

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N

[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the case in poker. If someone thinks a novice player is messing them up somehow with poor play, it means they're not a good player either. A good poker player wants their opponents to play as poorly as possible.

This is the sort of statement that sounds good to idiots and people who've never played poker. Anyone who's made money at casino poker is aware of how much of a hassle retards spasming at the card table can make things even if they're going to lose in the end.

I played professionally for years. I wanted my opponents to play as badly as possible.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#183
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Financial elites have been gambling for decades. They seem to be really upset that the plebs now can also do it. I really don't understand this sentiment, as if a professional gambler would not gladly gamble with novices...but putting that aside... I think the emphasis is more about how there's no other game in town that can compete, not that gambling is new. Interest rates are so low that there isn't a simple/safe…

Well of course there’s no “safe” 10% investment. That’s true across the board! Higher returns correlate with higher risk (otherwise a smart investor would pick the investment with the same returns and less risk). That aside, you know what’s averaged returns of 10% that’s simple and hasn’t risked your money going to zero (assuming you have the good sense to buy and hold)? The stock market. Bog-standard index funds, av…

100% percent agree. Here in Toronto, it's very difficult for the average person invest a meaningful amount of money.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the case in poker. If someone thinks a novice player is messing them up somehow with poor play, it means they're not a good player either. A good poker player wants their opponents to play as poorly as possible.

This is the sort of statement that sounds good to idiots and people who've never played poker. Anyone who's made money at casino poker is aware of how much of a hassle retards spasming at the card table can make things even if they're going to lose in the end.

It changes the strategy, and it might take you a while to hit, but it greatly improves your potential to win.

I once played 1/2 NL uncapped at a casino, a guy sat down and put $1000 on the table. Every other hand he would raise $25-50 preflop, and call re-raises. Got all in pre-flop and pre-turn a bunch of times, every time he bust he put another $1000 on the table. This is exactly the best player to play with. Yes, you have to sit and wait for good cards before getting involved, but if you get something good, you have very good odds of stacking them.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#185
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Financial elites have been gambling for decades. They seem to be really upset that the plebs now can also do it. I really don't understand this sentiment, as if a professional gambler would not gladly gamble with novices...but putting that aside... I think the emphasis is more about how there's no other game in town that can compete, not that gambling is new. Interest rates are so low that there isn't a simple/safe…

You're only "stuck" if what you need is to inflate your wealth at the expense of someone losing theirs.

That's a fairy tail they teach in school.

You dont get money because someone else lost some. You get money because you helped stabilizing the market by predicting it right. The losers lose because they predicted it wrong. Its a net gain for everyone who is somehow affected by the market which means basically everyone on this planet. There is no moral problem with winning or with loosing as you help either way.

Also there is no need for anyone to lose, everyone could be right all the time that would give a perfectly stable market, but people are terrible at predicting the future so that will never happens.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the case in poker. If someone thinks a novice player is messing them up somehow with poor play, it means they're not a good player either. A good poker player wants their opponents to play as poorly as possible.

This is the sort of statement that sounds good to idiots and people who've never played poker. Anyone who's made money at casino poker is aware of how much of a hassle retards spasming at the card table can make things even if they're going to lose in the end.

No, totally wrong, it’s the exact opposite. Novices and only novices think “you can’t beat bad players cause they’re unpredictable!”

Even your more moderate point you’d rather not have them in the game is totally wrong.

In reality, every professional player loves players who do terrible, random things. Variance might go up, but variance is going to be annoying either way. Other players doing dumb things is where your EV comes from. I’ve only ever heard complaints about crazy players being a hassle from inexperienced amateurs who dabble. Pros want “live ones” in their games.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#188

Our job in life is to engage in value creation. When money is decoupled from value creation, your long-term bet is that it will lose its value, as value creation is what actually matters in the “real” world. This is also why “crypto” (the asset class, not technology) is so corrosive, because it makes people who have done approximately nothing to create value in society, but who’ve enjoyed a massive boost in monetary…

I agree with your last statement, but I think you are mixing cause and effect. Crypto is exploding because our system is already corroded. Starting with the creation of the Fed, and tracing through endless money printing and complex financial instruments which let well-connected companies and politicians create paper wealth out of nothing, we've decoupled money from value. Savings pay no interest, manual labor doesn'…

> we've decoupled money from value.

Since when was it ever coupled?

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2% of the world's wealth is tied up in crypto (and it's growing quickly). If it does implode, that'll make The Great Financial Crisis look like blip. At this point, I can't imagine financial regulators doing anything to stop it.

What will actually happen if the crypto coins collapse in price? What tangible effects will there be? Very few people's salaries are paid in crypto, crypto isn't backing people's mortgages, and outside of the rare (and newsworthy) cases, people are not investing extreme amounts of money into crypto that they cannot possibly afford to lose. I have a hard time imagining what actual tangible disasters will happen if cry…

What will happen is 2% of the world's "wealth" would disappear - which would almost certainly spill over causing a much larger decline.

From 2007 to 2008, for example, global wealth declined about ~10% [1].

There's not much room left for central banks before we officially enter banana town. If cyrpto implodes, it could easily be worse than the financial crisis - which means, regulators have an interest in it NOT imploding.

[1] https://www.credit-suisse.com/about-us/en/reports-research/g...

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#190
post #3

>for many of us, money is only experienced through our phones, as a number on a screen. You pay your rent with one app, you buy put options with another. The number goes up, it goes down, it lives in the little portal we hold in our hands. And decades ago it was a number written down on a little piece of paper, and before that it was little pieces of “precious” metal locked away somewhere. At least nowadays amateurs…

It's the other way around. First there was personal debt, then impersonal money.

In the beginning you would just lend stuff from other people and give it back, or with consumables give something back of similar worth.

Precious metal was pretty rarely used, as its main benefit is that you need almost no common trust relationship.

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